The rule says you must get "a reasonable time" to respond when another player is winning a fight. What your friends are doing is not reasonable; you should be able to read the card to determine what, if anything, you want to do. On the other hand, you cannot take time during a fight to read every card on the table, contemplate your many (or few) options, or use a card to "discard dive," hoping to find something you can use in the fight. The "2.6 seconds" part of the rule is a joke; the intent is that you cannot hold up the game indefinitely just because someone else is winning, or, conversely, that you cannot immediately declare a win before your opponents can react.